


Welcome to Night Vale as an Example of Unreliable Narration

by BromocresolGreen



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil Might be Human or Inhuman, Character Analysis, Gen, Meta, this is an essay analyzing the structure of the podcast, this isn't a fic in the traditional sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 17:12:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7114903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BromocresolGreen/pseuds/BromocresolGreen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The podcast Welcome to Night Vale gives a view of the titular town inaccessible through other formats because of its unique narrator and format. The narrator, the character Cecil Palmer, presents the town through his personal biases and through the lens of his position as a local radio host. The podcast is the local news for the dystopian town of Night Vale, within which frequent unexplained supernatural events are accepted as normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Welcome to Night Vale as an Example of Unreliable Narration

Welcome to Night Vale, abbreviated as WTNV, is an example of surreal humor and horror, fluctuating between the two based on the audience’s perspective. Night Vale contrasts to its sister city, Desert Bluffs, being extremely government controlled while Desert Bluffs is owned by a monopolistic business, StrexCorp Synergists Inc. The business expands into Night Vale; the plot line of the attempted takeover and resistance is referred to as the StrexCorp arc. 

The podcast is formatted as a radio show, and has portions of the show that repeat in different episodes, for example, the weather, traffic, a word from our sponsors, community calendar, and others. In this essay, these are collectively referred to as recurring segments. A large part of the podcast’s narrative technique is to deliberately go against what the audience expects to create an uncanny effect; this action, to provide one thing when another thing was expected, is referred to here as to disappoint. It is not meant with the typical connotation of sadness or frustration, but more of surprise and unease. 

Audience and listener are not used interchangeably. “Audience” refers to the people experiencing WTNV as a podcast, and roughly corresponds to both the actual audience and the authorial audience in Rabinowitz’s levels of audiences. Cecil speaks to his “listeners” and the term here refers to the people experiencing WTNV as their local radio news, which roughly corresponds to Rabinowitz’s narrative audience and ideal narrative audience. 

The essay begins looking at the podcast’s format of a radio show, and the role of the format in expectations and givens, followed by a look to the narrator’s character, Cecil, and is role as a radio host, and finally, the instances where there have been other narrators, and the comparison between them and Cecil. 

* * *

 WTNV is formatted to mimic a radio show, but in conveying the moods and events of the story, it deviates from the expected format; the dissonance is a way of establishing the aforementioned mood, and setting the tone for the story. As Jentsch describes in his essay, “On the Psychology of the Uncanny,” deviations from the familiar create an uncanny feeling. The podcast does this often, and it corresponds to the idea of disappointing the audience. In addition, it forces the audience to “build associations [they] didn’t have previously,” which “mess[es] with people and throw[s] off [their] reading,” (Hale). It interrupts the audience’s thought process, but the story continues, so the audience does not have time to reconcile the new information from the podcast to their previous ways of thinking; the new information remains uncanny and unnerving (Jentsch). 

Small disappointments are most obvious in the recurring segments of the podcast. “A word from our sponsors,” is expected to be a product’s or service’s advertisement from the sponsor’s company. In WTNV, this is rarely the case. One advertised ‘product,’ was “the physical act of gulping,” (“The Man in the Tan Jacket”). A fictional advertisement for Craigslist asked listeners to sell their unwanted items, and ends with the reveal that they have “already sold your [the listener’s] stuff while you were gone,” which in addition to being an unnerving disappointment, reminds the audience of the town’s dystopic government allowing this to happen (worms…). In another instance, Cecil literally repeated a “word from [the] sponsors. That word [was] carp,” (“History Week”). 

While the proverbs following the end credits are not part of the podcast itself, they function similar in terms of the expectations and givens. The first part of a Night Vale proverb typically matches a well known phrase, “What has four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?” while the second part is drastically different, and often unnerving in its own right, “I don’t know, but I trapped it in my bedroom. Send help,” (“PTA Meeting”). Also, WTNV is not limited to verbal communications, and the disappointments are also occasionally just sound and not the expected words. Another proverb was announced as “today’s proverb,” but was followed by loud static and no speech (“September Monologues”). 

* * *

 Typical news programs use different language than WTNV. The language is concise and professional as so to convey the important events quickly and clearly; the difference is because the shortened professional diction is inconvenient for storytelling, and loses the moods and emotions that the podcast relies on. The following is an excerpt from a transcript from 1010 WINS, a New York based radio news station: 

  * The small plane that carried New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle to his death flew one of the city’s most popular routes for sightseeing pilots, a largely unmonitored corridor that some lawmakers have tried to close for years because of safety and security concerns. Many of those officials expressed shock Thursday that small aircraft are still allowed to fly so close to the skyline in a post-Sept. 11 era. (Maloney) 



What is given is a summary of the event, and while it is very informative, it is also very dull. No emotional content is given, and the audience has a significant distance from the person speaking; the narrator could be anyone at all, and the report would change very little, or not change at all. Although the transcripts do not show this as obviously, the voice of the speaker is very monotonous, and without accompanying music. In contrast, an except from WTNV episode 38 “Orange Grove” is much different. 

  * John Peters – you know, the farmer? – said his winter orange crop is outstanding this year. He said there are oranges everywhere! Delicious clementines, juicy Valencias, rich navels, and bold blood oranges. John said there are so many oranges, “a real bumper crop,” he said. “A real orange-tacular,” he did not say. “A real orange-a-thon,” he never would have said. “A real orange-ocalypse,” he may have thought, but kept to himself. John, speaking to a pack of local reporters, and backed by a group of farmers wearing black double-breasted suits and red silk ties, said this is the dawning of a new citrus economy in Night Vale. 



The difference is obvious from the first line, as Cecil uses the colloquialism “you know, the farmer?” and continues in a much more casual tone compared to the excerpt from 1010 WINS. Both use “the vocabulary of their audience[s],” but the difference in tone makes WTNV feel more personal, with less distance between the audience and narrator (Hale). Cecil also provides much more detail than the other excerpt, which would be considered extraneous to the reporting, and be omitted in a real life radio show. The first excerpt uses long sentences, and the second uses many short sentences, and the pauses in Cecil’s speech help establish rhythm, which is lacking in the first excerpt. Cecil fluctuates in speaking slower and faster than the 1010 WINS reporter, which also adds to rhythm. The “presence or exaggerated rhythm is a conventional signal…[for] reading poetry,” so the audience is now “expecting the ambiguous, the non-literal and the metaphorical,” which further deviates from the typical radio format, non-fiction to a storytelling format, fiction (Hale).

 In addition, Cecil’s reporting here is accompanied by ominous piano music, which adds an unnerving quality to the reporting not reproducible with only the verbal information. The piano music is not playing in “the story world itself but [is] an element of the discourse,” replacing the “conventional narrative commentary,” (Huwiler 54). The music can be seen as foreshadowing, as the oranges are revealed to fade people and objects out of existence upon contact. 

* * *

 The chronology of WTNV is often ambiguous, sometimes intentionally so, and sometimes as a product of the episodic structure, with limited time per episode, and gaps in storytelling. A traditional radio news show is continuous, that is, the station broadcasts continuously, usually repeating earlier reports and generally functioning as a live feed for the day’s events. WTNV does not follow that, mostly because it would be incredibly an inconvenient format for a podcast, and because the plot events, especially events that occur outside of the episode, fall ambiguously in the timeline.

 The episodes are chronological, with the plot of one episode occurring after the plot of any previous episodes, and at times the fictional timeline matches the real dates episodes are released: the episode “Valentine,” published on February 15th, refers to “this Valentine’s day,” and the related “recovery and cleanup,” which would have occurred on February 14th.

 In other instances, the time is deliberately shown as non-linear. When Cecil rides the subway for the first time, he returns, audibly shaken and upset by the experience, and asks the listeners, “I have been missing you since I left you to the weather. What was the weather like then? How much time has passed for you?” and then is shocked to find it has been “only four minutes,” (“Subway”). The four-minute period in which he was in the subway and not reporting was the portion of the episode devoted to the weather. 

The weather is a reoccurring segment that is always a song, as part of the creators’ ongoing collaboration with independent musicians, and never resembles an actual radio weather report. The weather plays as an intermission, and afterwards, Cecil will return, and explain the resolution of the episode; while the song is typically around three to four minutes, Cecil’s ending description is usually of something that could not have conceivably occurred within three to four minutes, even with the surreal context of the show. During the weather of one episode, Cecil left the station, fought off monstrous antiques to save Mayor Dana Cardinal, returned to the station, and then dealt with an injured intern, with Cecil later having no memory of what occurred (“Antiques,” “BRINY DEPTHS”). 

This is a product of the podcast’s episodic structure; the episode’s plot must be resolved in the time allotted, and the weather intermission is a device to imagine more time. 

Another quality of recurring segments is that they are often pre-recorded, that is, a listener hears the podcast as being live broadcast and these segments were spoken before, and only played now. Because they are occurring in a different part of the story’s timeline, there is usually a shift in music, in Cecil’s voice and tone, and an interruption of the episode’s main story. The ambiguity of when the recorded portion occurred is not particularly relevant, but the fact that it eclipses the current proceedings gives the audience a sort of mood whiplash, and creates suspense about the possible outcomes.

* * *

 Cecil is a radio host, and because of that, what the audience is hearing from him is through the filter of radio regulations and censorship. Cecil is somewhat of a rebel, and is often conflicted between his journalistic integrity, to report the truth, and his view of the ideal Night Vale citizen, to comply with the law. He has referred to himself as a “subversive radio host,” having earned the corresponding badge in Boy Scouts (“Missing”). Acting directly against regulations is rarely successful, and Cecil upsets Station Management and the City Council in doing so, and has been sent to re-education because of his rebellions (“History Week”). This is a mark of Night Vale’s dystopic government and lack of freedom of speech. 

Cecil is very restricted in what he can and cannot report on, so the majority of his ‘rebellions’ are subtle. His paraphrasing of a source doesn’t change the literal meaning of the reporting, but conveys his messages through the connotations and sentence structure. During the StrexCorp arc, Cecil must report on rebel leader Tamika Flynn, and he reports on her recent actions saying, “This was wrong of her, and it is my duty to condemn her act of extreme civic pride and heroism, which is also wrong. Everything was incorrect, and not allowed, and should not be celebrated or reported on,” which acknowledges that her actions, in Cecil’s view, were patriotic and heroic, not really condemning them as he claims to (“The Woman from Italy”). The redundancy and repetition of her actions being wrong convey Cecil’s disagreement with what he is saying, but the literal meaning still fits the required parameters. Similarly, the redundant denials convey to the audience, though not necessarily to the listeners, that any set of phrases are lies. 

Cecil reports that “there was absolutely not a Pink Floyd Multimedia Laser Spectacular this weekend at Radon Canyon, that there was never a Pink Floyd Multimedia Laser Spectacular ever near Night Vale. Pink Floyd is not even a thing” and continues, as expected that “The Council reiterated that there is no way that they are huge Floyd fans, privately using public funds on a laser-powered séance…This did not happen at all,” (“The Lights in Radon Canyon”). Again, the audience understands that there was a Multimedia Laser Spectacular, despite the denials, which are unnecessarily repetitive, and suspiciously detailed. 

The ambiguity arises it that it is unclear if these denials are of Cecil’s invention, or copied from what he was told by the Council. As such, there is a divide between the audience and the listeners. The listeners have a set of facts at their disposal, which the audience does not, and so cannot completely take on the role of listeners when hearing the podcast (Rabinowitz). Because of the gap between the audience and listeners, the audience is unsure of what the listeners believe, and are further unsure of what they are expected to believe, the literal meaning of the reporting, or the implied meaning. This then returns to the uncanny nature of unreconciled information, and maintaining a surreal atmosphere for the narrative. 

Cecil being an unreliable narrator is partially because of outside influences, and those influences being unreliable as well. 

* * *

 Cecil often digresses from reporting local events to elaborate on his personal life, and his reporting is influenced by his personal biases as well as the ruling powers. In a few episodes, notably “First Date,” Cecil disregards the news to discuss the state of his romantic relationship, and only returns to the news when Station Management is “flailing around their office and howling.”

 Cecil’s digressions are more a part of storytelling than of anything else, so that the podcast’s overall plot is more grounded in characters and long-term issues than on the self-contained events resolved in a single episode. Continuing the plot on characters, Cecil’s descriptions of Night Vale citizens is highly subjective, and based entirely on his personal interactions with them. 

Carlos, a scientist who visited Night Vale in the pilot and remained as Cecil’s boyfriend in the following years, is described as being perfect, and Telly, the barber who gave Carlos an unfortunate haircut, is “treacherous,” for having committed “such depravity,” (“Station Management”). This negative, angry description gives the only known details about the character. 

The audience assumes Cecil to be correct simply because of lack of information indicating otherwise; this is true for nearly everything. Cecil is a radio host, but his official title is The Voice of Night Vale, and was referred to as only that until the character’s name was revealed. Cecil is, especially in the earlier episodes, literally the voice of the entire town, as his is only voice heard, and that he gives voice to the characters not present through his quoting and paraphrasing. Cecil is only one character, and because the narrative is centered on a single character, it is inherently skewed by that character’s biases. 

* * *

 Cecil’s limited point of view is a factor in him being an unreliable narrator, and when other narrators show their view points, his biases are more obvious. The episode “September Monologues” is notable for this; Cecil’s role as a host is simply introducing a set of prerecorded segments of other characters’ monologues, with strange static over his voice, and the other characters heard clearly. 

Cecil hates his brother in law, Steve Carlsberg, and is generally disrespectful and rude towards him. Steve wrote to the radio station, with a request to remain anonymous, Cecil reveals Steve’s identity immediately, shifting to an angry tone, with an abrupt end to the accompanying music, and insults him (“Drawbridge”). Steve is a Scorpio, and all reported horoscopes for Scorpio are negative; the only positive horoscope, Cecil abandons, then improvises an insulting one instead (“Bonus 3-Librarian Horoscopes,” “Rumbling”). 

Here, in September Monologues, Steve shares his side, which is the first and only time Cecil’s hatred of him is explained; the two of them disagree on how to raise Janice, Cecil’s niece, and Steve’s adopted daughter. Cecil “was raised in the Night Vale tradition of silence,” which explains his conflicted willingness to comply with government censorship and rejection of Steve’s forbidden information “and with a belief in the power of hierarchy and bureaucracy,” which corresponds to his compliance with town regulations and civic pride (“September Monologues”). 

It is a greater indication of the censorship that goes on in Night Vale, and an indication that Cecil’s reporting is not a undivided view of Night Vale, nor is it an entirely accurate view of Night Vale. 

* * *

 More differences are shown in comparing Cecil to his foil, Kevin, a radio host in Night Vale’s sister city Desert Bluffs. Kevin debuts in the two-part episode “Sandstorm,” where the towns of both Night Vale and Desert Bluffs are connected by portals, which reveals that the citizens of one town are the doubles of the other; it is implied that Kevin is Cecil’s double.

 When they switch, Kevin is vaguely amused by Night Vale, commenting that the radio station is “drier than it should be,” but Cecil is horrified by Desert Bluffs, as the radio station is “covered in blood, and instead of buttons and dials on the soundboard, there is just animal viscera,” (“Sandstorm”). 

Kevin’s voice is much lighter than Cecil’s, and he does set a lighter tone as well, being generally cheerier and happier, although the implications of this are darker than what Cecil typically maintains, especially during the StrexCorp arc, within which Kevin is an antagonist. Aside from their voices and speech, the music accompanying the two of them are very different. Cecil’s music is ominous and distorted and often electronic, whereas Kevin’s music is acoustic and cheerful. Both towns are dystopias, but perceived as idyllic by their native citizens; the audience, when not in the role of the listeners, sees both as dystopias.

 Kevin leading up to the StrexCorp arc and during it, is shown as an antagonist, from Cecil’s point of view. In Cecil’s view, Kevin is out of touch with reality, and in comparison to Cecil, has less of an emotional range; Kevin is happier, but it often seems he is only unchangingly, monotonously happy. The “music functions as an audible device that helps to tell the story,” and the “narrative function of the voice…indicat[ing] subjectivity,” make the dichotomy between the two more obvious, so the audience knows that neither is a realistic account, and that both are very subjective (Huwiler 54, 53).

* * *

 Cecil is an unreliable narrator, and this in conjunction with WTNV’s radio format produces a unique view of the town of Night Vale. The podcast’s pervasive vagueness and ambiguity mean that many characters are not developed as in depth as they could be in maybe another genre; surreal horror relies heavily on vague statements and ambiguity. 

Cecil’s past is near unknown, and he himself seems to not know most details; he is shown to be impossibly old, older than radio itself, but also as having been a radio intern, and a Boy Scout, and a child living with his mother. The details are contradictory.

 Cecil could be an omniscient narrator, as while some reports are sourced, it is never explained how he knows what was said. If Cecil is accepted as an omniscient narrator, the podcast would be analyzed more strictly in his character, because now his decisions have a greater impact on what the radio would be. 

We could also look at the audience’s relationship to the listeners in greater depth, perhaps looking to all of Rabinowitz’s levels of audience, and not amalgams of them. The podcast requires the audience to, if not take the role of the listener, to temporarily accept a cosmology different from their own, a sort of suspension of disbelief because of the unreliable narration, and accept that some things are simultaneously true and untrue.

WORKS CITED

Hale, Alexis Summer, and Evelyn <a href="http://allthingslinguistic.com/post/132692150326/the-linguistics-of-horror">"The Linguistics of Horror.”</a> All Things Linguistic. 1 Oct. 2014. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.

Huwiler, Elke. “Storytelling by Sound: A Theoretical Frame for Radio Drama Analysis.” The Radio Journal: International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media 3.1 (2005): 45-59. Web. 7 Nov. 2015.

Jentsch, Ernst. “On the Psychology of the Uncanny.” Trans. Roy Sellars. CANG Angelaki (1906): 7-16. Web. 7 Nov. 2015.

Maloney, Carolyn. “Lidle’s Doomed Plane Followed Popular Flight Pat.” 1010 WINS. CBS. New York, NY, 12 Oct. 2006. Vote Smart. Web. 10 Dec. 2015. Transcript.

Rabinowitz, Peter J. “Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences”. Critical Inquiry 4.1 (1977): 121–141. Web. 6 Nov. 2015.

**Author's Note:**

> this is also on [tumblr](http://bromocresol0green.tumblr.com/post/137667590228/welcome-to-night-vale-as-an-example-of-unreliable)


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